Am 28 years old, live in Northampton, England, work as a internet administrator. Like horror films, rock music, zombie books etc etc.

My gamertag is Happyhead UK, I really really want to play online games with friendly people,as I hate playing with strangers, I really feel like I'm missing out on online games due to this fact so am envious of all the people with thier fancy 'friend lists'!

Anyway my first console was a BBC Acorn Electron, I loved it, had hundreds of games for it. My fave games were the Repton ones, as well as Crazy Rider, and a game set in a underground base that I can't recall the title of. All good things come to an end though. One day the cassette box thing broke, rather then get a new one my parents chucked the whole thing away, and sold all the games to some dodgy bloke at a car boot sale for £5.

That was the end of my console owning days I assumed. My friends all had Master Systems, so we would spend hours playing Alex Kidd and Sonic, I thought the graphics and sound were unbelivable.

One birthday I find a big present, I open it to find surrounded by a legion of angels a Megadrive, a pure virgin Megadrive, with Altered Beast and Sonic. Before that day I had not even realised such a beast of power existed.

I become the cool kid in the neighbourhood with everyone wanting to play it. A year later a bitter war erupted, a enemy appeared on the horizon - the Super NES...

It was a bitter and bloody battle over the next few years. Some of my friends got Megadrives, while other friends were torn asunder and got Super NES's, a civil war of apocalyptic proportions. Fighting in the streets, gangs armed with Game Gears and Gameboys beating each other into bloody chunks, a literal Hell on Earth.

Looking back I think this is were my dislike of Nintendo appeared. Don't get me wrong, nowadays I love Nintendo games, I own a GBA, DS, Gamecube and Wii, but at the root of my being I will always love Sega more. To this day I dislike Mario. I think the games are amazing, but he himself I detest. I refuse to believe there is such a thing as a bad Sonic game, I just turn a blind eye to the bad ones...anyway I digress.

After that I brought a NES, sold it, though liked it, brought a Super NES (my fave game of all time is the Super NES version of Batman Returns), sold it to get a Playstation, sold that when I got a Playstation 2, brought an almighty Dreamcast (RIP), and got a N64 for Goldeneye. Swallowed my pride and brought a Xbox. The rest is history.

Back in the early 90's Konami had the licence to the fun 'Tiny Toons' cartoon. Rather than release the same game on the Megadrive and Super NES, they made 2 very different games.

'Busters Hidden Treasure' was released for the Megadrive. The game was a platformer, spread over 33 different stages, with a Super Mario World style world map you use to traverse the levels. Many levels had alternate exits leading to harder levels. The plot was basic, but ok, it saw you as Buster Bunny heading to a Island to search for treasure buried there. Montana Max also headed there, and with a Scientest's help he attempts to get to the treasure before Buster.

The game was quite typical in that you killed enemies by leaping on thier heads. If you moved long enough you would break into an insane run which let you slide tackle the enemies. The games locations were varied, and split into seperate groups of themed levels. Starting off in the grasslands with the familier Tiny Toons theme as the background music , it led to dark forests, dank caves, snowy mountains, and a big factory. The levels were well designed, and lots of variety to what you did, with underwater levels in which you swam, to levels full of zip lines, and elevators.

The end of each group of levels see you fight a boss. This usually involves one of the characters from the show such as Dizzy Devil, Plucky Duck etc attacking you while under mind control from a creepy looking scientest.

Lots of characters from the series make appearances, as bosses, special moves (think the mortar from Streets of Rage), and enemies. A real fun game.

'Buster Busts Loose' was released for the Super NES. The game was set over 6 or 7 levels. It looked really good, and had great music. As far as I can tell the game has no plot. Most the levels are set as if they are a film, so theres a Western themed level, a level set in a haunted house, and even a level which is basically Star Wars, complete with Storm Troopers, and a Darth Vader look alike boss. The problem with this game is there is a total lack of any coherance to the levels, they have nothing in common, and just seem really disjointed and random. Also some of the levels are really short, such as the bizarre American Football level.

Rather than being able to jump on enemies heads, Buster defeats enemies by doing a weird floaty somasault kick at them. In this game also he can run, and slide tackle enemies, and has a cool move whereby he can run up walls as long as his stamina gauge holds out. Again characters from the cartoon are used as bosses, and as enemies.

After each level is a randomly generated bonus game where you can earn extra lives. At the time I thought this was ace, but playing it recently I have realised it is actually really boring. You earn lives by playing bingo, or other similer style mini games.

The game is good, but is not great. Too short, and just not as fun or entertaining as the Megadrive version. The winner therefore is...the Megadrive version. Thier all so cheap nowadays you might as well get both versions though. I also remember the Gameboy Tiny Toons game being ace, and the NES one looks real good.

Saturday morning my damn 360 red ringed again. Just over a year ago it red ringed, sent it off to someplace in England and it come back fixed. Damn annoying, but I guess it can't be helped.

This time though it is being sent all the way to Germany to be fixed which seems a tad odd. I guess I wont be getting it back within a week like I did last time.

Luckily for me it is still covered by it's 3 year warranty so will cost me nothing but time.

This is hardly a blog post, not even 10 darn lines, but god damn it. I have at least 70 games I have not yet even played for all my other systems, so its not like i have nothing to play now. A Gamestation opening close to my house has made me so broke with all its stupidly cheap last gen games.

I cannot wait until I get paid. As my life is Hellish at the moment I'm looking forward to getting lost in some videogames. This isn't so much a blog post as a rambling of my hungover thoughts. But anyway, the games I intend to buy (hopefully!) are thus;
House of the Dead 2 and 3 (Wii) - I actually already have House of the Dead 2 on the Dreamcast and on the X-box, and have House of the Dead 3 on the X-box, so I'm kinda a sucker for wanting to buy them yet again.

Zombie Revenge (Dreamcast) - I'm hoping to track this down in E-Bay, I used to own it, and thought it was quite average with awful controls, but it has a level set in the mansion from House of the Dead, so that's really cool!

Silent Hill 5 (360) - I meant to buy this this month, but due to personal issues I wasn't in the mood to buy things. I love this series, obviously Silent Hill 2 is the best, but I have a real soft spot for Silent Hill 3, I feel it was under-rated. Silent Hill is still fantastic, and Silent Hill 4 I did enjoy, eventually on my third play though.

Resident Evil 5 (360) - I was totally put off this game by the dreadful demo, and having no friends makes me dread having to play though the game with a hidious A.I controlled character, but I do love the series, and the story, so must get it really.

Onechanbara (360, and Wii) - I'm going to buy both the 360, and Wii versions of this game, as one is the sequal to the other (I think the Wii one is the sequal). There quite cheap (well they were, I hope they still are) and should be some good zombie mashing fun.
Left 4 Dead (360) - I have been putting off buying this game for so long, again as again I have no friends to play it with. I know it is multi-player only, but I guess I will just have to play it with strangers.

Call of Duty: World at War (360) - I thought the demo was ok, I'm more interested in the zombie modes though, plus one of my 360 friends plays the game constantly, as in all the frickin time. On a side note I have about 7 or 8 360 friends, yet I have never actually played anything with any of them (well apart from the D-Toid friends on Friday Game night).

Resident Evil: Gun Survivor (Playstation) - Lastely this one, I used to own this, despite looking like crap, it was actually quite fun, or so my memory tells me. The lack of a save point was annoying, but I remember cool monkey like SWAT team monsters, and the story is canon which is really cool for a Resident Evil nerd like me.

So there you have it, the list of games I intend to buy depending on cost (I have bills to pay). Hollow times indeed. I know this post is a mess, but I'm surprised by stoopid hungover brain was able to manage this much!

Spoilers aplenty probably, so be warned. Gongora is the main bad guy in the fantastic RPG 'Lost Odyssey'. Many many people love the Lost Odyssey game, and many people see the main bad guy Gongora as a weakness on the part of the game. Let me don my geek specs...

Last night I drempt that I was sitting at a table, I was having a debate about Gongora with 2 ex-friends of mine. I wasn't able to get my point across as I was being shouted down. So when I awoke I decided I would get my point across via a blog post.

I will admit Gongora's aim is a stereotypical one, or at least first it seems to be. He is power mad, and wants to be ruler of the world. It is apparant at least to me that he has much better true motives, and that maybe none of it is his fault anyway.

Gongora and a lot of the main characters are all 'aliens' from a different dimension. They were all sent to the world of the game via some type of magic mirror. They were given 1000 years to achieve thier goal (what ever it was), they are immortal, unable to die, and unable to age.

The game takes place at the end of thier 1000 year mission. All the immortals feel the pull of the magic mirror, as the beings from the mirror's world call for the immortals to go back home to where they belong. None of the characters want to go there, not least Gongora, he has a plan to destroy the mirror so that he will never have to leave the world he loves so much.

Part of his plan involves wiping the memories of the other immortals, so that he can carry his plan out unmolested. Sure a part of his reason to destroy the mirror may be so he can be a self proclaimed God and ruler of the game world, but also he is angry at the unrelenting urge to leave the world. What right do the other world have to drag him back home when he is having so much fun? Kaim and the others also have no wish to go back, they all have people they love in the game world. It isn't fair in my opinion that they got to defeat Gongora, but also got to stay where they wanted.

The next part of my defence of the coolness of Gongora is his personality. It is suggested through the game that when the immortals where in thier own world they had no emotions, no form, no personality, nothing. Thier experiances since arriving in the world has shaped them and moulded them into what they become. While Kaim for instance discovered the power of love, Mina discovered the power of wanting to protect her people, Gongora seems to have just become really angry and bitter about everything. It is not his fault, the world made him into this person.

Gongora can't be killed, so Seth drags him into the magic mirror and back to his own world before it explodes. I like to imagine that when they returned they lost everything, that they went back to being formless emotionless beings, and that they were able to report back on thier mission with neutrality.

The world is at fault for making Gongora power hungry, he is not a bad person, so isn't the stereotypical RPG bad guy he's been made out to be. At least thats the points I tried to make in my dream last night.

I am not happy. I was still rejoicing over completing Book I when I got jammed into a groundhog day style death bug. This is a cautionary tale of woe.

The game is really fun, and has great music. I really enjoyed doing Book I, Book II carries straight on from the end of Book I. I walked to the first dungeon type place where there were 2 stationary enemies guarding a treasure chest. To defeat them you have to constantly walk into them, wait for your energy to recharge then walk into them again until they die. I killed one of them, and then saved my game. I killed the 2nd one and went on about my business of fighting goons, until I accidently died. Never mind I thought, and I reloaded my saved game.

The enemy I had killed had respawned, exactly where I was standing when I had saved my game, so I was stuck in an endless loop of death. It was then a little part of me died. While writing this I thought that maybe someone in internet land might have out down a password. Gamefaqs saved my soul. The password put me back about 10 minutes of game and one level higher than I had been, so its usable (though about 43,000 digits long)

The morale of my story is - save on more then one damn save slot, unless you want to be screwed over!

I was a huge huge fan of Splatterhouse 2, well, I still am. In fact I think that game was a contributing factor into getting me into horror films, it is littered with references to the classic horrors, most obvious being 'Friday 13th' due to the hockey mask the main character wears (yeah, I know it's supposed to be some ancient power giving demonic mask rather than a hockey mask).

When I got my Virtual Console...I mean Wii Splatterhouse was the first game I downloaded. The game is really good, it feels like a basic version of Splatterhouse 2, which it is. The music, graphics and everything are just as good.

The game sees you fight your way though 7 levels of monster filled madness to rescue your kidnapped girlfriend, main enemies being various types of zombies. There are multiple routes through most the levels, more routes than are present in the sequal in fact. The bosses like the sequal are fantastic show stopping events mostly. Everything from a room full of possesed furniture to a sack wearing corpse weilding dual chainsaws.

I had hoped the game would be the uncensored version, but alas it was not to be. The biggest fault of the censored version (apart from Rick having a stupid red mask instead of white) I believe is the 4th level boss. Originally you had to fight a floating crucifix surrounded by severed heads in a church. After beating it Rick walks up to an alter and church music starts playing as the church lights up. In the censored version you instead fight a floating blue blob surrounded by severed heads. After beating it Rick walks upto an empty space (where the altar should be), church music starts playing as the place your in lights up (still blatenly a church) and makes no sense whatsoever.

Regardless of this the game is fantastic. I really hope they release Splatterhouse 3 as well on the Virtual Console, that games like gold dust and I have only played it on an emulator before.